Let’s start the year, as we hope to go on – by offering our congratulations.

Smalltown America Records will spend 2011 celebrating its tenth birthday. No small achievement given the perilous state of the industry these days. Andrew Ferris and co have been slogging away away at the indie coalface for the last decade – providing moral, practical and financial support for countless acts. And in that time they have developed an awareness of their audience and an eye for emerging talent, that means, 10 years in, they have a roster of acts the equal of any other label of their level. Fighting With Wire, Lafaro, ASIWYFA, Feldberg and More Than Conquerors – that’s a squad to die for. And, loyal bunnies that they are, all of them will be releasing new records in the coming months – ensuring that STA’s big year, will also be their biggest year.
Congratulations too to Cashier Number 9. The band’s long-awaited debut album, recorded in LA, produced by David Holmes, is a thing of wonder. It will see the light of day this year, and with a bit of luck, could follow the Two Door Cinema Club route and launch into immediate orbit. Few other records will arrive with as much swagger and class.
The Jane Bradfords are probably the only Liverpool fans who’ve been wearing smiles over the last few weeks. The boys were chosen by the club’s in-house TV channel to provide song-bedding for lots of their pre-Christmas programmes. An ambivalent ‘honour’ that has seen them receive plenty of exposure, but has it also meant that Deci and co will forever be associated with Roy Hodgson and his face-rubbing regime? Hopefully not. A new single ‘Tonight the World is Always Ending’ will be released on February 22. And the album, Windows and Walls will follow in time for summer. And maybe even in time for a new manager for the Reds.
By the end of last year, The Lowly Knights seemed to have regained much of the ground that they had earlier lost through convulsive line-up changes. The two EPs they released seemed a modest kind of reinvention – but their impact on band morale was striking. Expect much more in the months ahead.
No new records (for a change) from Cat Malojian last year, but that’s not to say they were taking things easy. A surprise call up to Ward Park showed that, despite their folksy, low-key approach, the trio had still been making good impressions. A year-end trip to Australia also saw them pick up a formidable fanbase on the other side of the world. A new album is due early summer, and if they continue their intra-record progress at their normal rate, it could be the one that propels them over the top. Fingers crossed everyone!
We should also mention Third Bar Artist Development (www.thirdbar.co.uk) – a company that will make its presence felt throughout the next twelve months. As the name suggests, it’s an enterprise with a strong Snow Patrol influence. Set up by Davy Matchett and (in the downtime between sessions for the next SP album) by Gary Lightbody, and based in the Oh Yeah Centre, their intention is to invest in and offer guidance to young local musicians. The very promising Elspeth are currently benefitting from the attention, and Tom McShane – a long-term favourite in this manor – has been working with them on his new album. As statements of intent go, however, they couldn’t have picked a better record to introduce themselves with.
We’ve carried news of Pat Dam Smyth many times on these pages over the years – both as a member of Pat and Nipsy and also as one of The Fools – and we’ve followed the lad from Belfast to LA to Liverpool to London and all the way back home. It’s been a languid and quixotic journey, and one perfectly in keeping with the romantically ramshackle nature of his songs. There has, however, always been a question mark over where and how it was all going to end up? Pat’s ambitions never seemed to extend beyond the chorus of his next tune – his talent apparently of the light-footed and restless variety – the suspicion lingered that maybe he was destined to make only fleeting impressions: maybe he wasn’t a bloke for the grand gesture. Well, the arrival of his debut album, The Great Divide should put pay to any of those whispers. Emotionally resonant, expertly recorded, and seeped in the classic melodicism of Ray Davies, Todd Rundgren, and post break-up McCartney, The Great Divide is the record that all his peers will have to measure themselves against in 2011.
Well done, sir. Now let’s see what the rest of them are made of.